Mind the Gap: Media, Researchers Identify Gentrification Differently

Richard Florida shares news of "a compelling new paper published in the latest issue of the journal Urban Studies that takes the New York Times to task for not deploying the word "gentrification" very well."

"The study, by sociologist Michael Barton of Louisiana State University, examines the differences between neighborhoods that the Times has identified as 'gentrified' or 'gentrifying' in the past three decades, and those identified by Census data and major academic studies. He finds a wide – and concerning – gap between the neighborhoods that social scientists call 'gentrified and those to which the Times affixes that label."

According to Florida, "[what] jumps out here are the large swathes of the city in which significant neighborhood change goes ignored by the Times. The Grey Lady was much more likely to peg gentrification in 'hip' neighborhoods in Manhattan and adjacent parts of Brooklyn (like Williamsburg) than in the Bronx and Queens, particularly in the 1990s and 2000s."